Peace Corps Leave Kazakhstan, but Why?
It’s official. Peace Corps has left Kazakhstan. Official reasons are not given. However given that they didn’t let it just wind down, but instead evacuated volunteers with little notice and given that they didn’t make any official announcement until all volunteers were out, there are a lot of rumours out there as to why. Most commentators seem to be citing the recent bombings, a large number of sexual assaults of PCVs in Kazakhstan, and a recent spate of media articles saying that Peace Corps Volunteers might be spies trying to create a revolution.
However, the Kazakhstan Embassy’s take that it was due to the fact that Kazakhstan is too developed to need Peace Corps volunteers doesn’t ring completely true.
In any case, I know many students who loved to tell me stories about a Peace Corps volunteer they met or were taught by. I know they were grateful. And I know that the PCV’s I met were a great bunch of people.
Subscribe or Share
Culture
- Yurts Are High Fashion and Slum Fashion Too
2011-12-05 - Apples, Sure. But THC is from Kazakhstan too?
2011-10-05 - Naked Man Pot
2011-09-23
- Yurts Are High Fashion and Slum Fashion Too
Resources
- Oh, CNN
2012-07-21 - What Do You Know About Kazakhstan?
2012-07-19 - Books for Kazakh Students
2011-11-06
- Oh, CNN
Politics
- Image
2011-07-28 - Sub Rosa Endorsement
2011-07-26 - The Naked Truth
2011-06-12
- Image
News
- KZBlog is going down
2013-09-10 - Oh, CNN
2012-07-21 - Repentence
2012-07-15
- KZBlog is going down
Fun
- What Do You Know About Kazakhstan?
2012-07-19 - Yurts Are High Fashion and Slum Fashion Too
2011-12-05 - House Hunters Bishkek
2011-12-02
- What Do You Know About Kazakhstan?
Tourism
- Asian Games Torch
2011-01-12 - Wikitravel
2010-08-07 - ALZHIR, the Soviets and Democracy
2010-07-30
- Asian Games Torch
Life in KZ
- Photo Gallery: Almaty Subway
2011-12-07 - Healthcare and the Private Sector
2011-11-30 - Naked Man Pot
2011-09-23
- Photo Gallery: Almaty Subway
it’s also pretty strange when you compare it with the PC’s programs in kyrgyzstan. Even with much worse violence than in KZ, the program in KG was scaled back, volunteers were evacuated, etc., but never shut down entirely. i understand there are still PCV in northern kyrgyzstan today.
personally, i suspect that the kazakhstani government asked them to leave. there are plenty of rumors about factions/ministries within the KZ government who were suspicious of the PC. someone probably leaked the rumor that PCVs are spies to the press in support of a political gambit to get the program dis-invited. your own twitter feed mentioned a post by a PCV in kazakh that suggested the government had asked them to leave. in my (admittedly limited, but i have had some) experience in speaking with kazakh officials, there is a strain of defensiveness about how developed the country is. the official peace corps reason for closing the program looks like an effort to stroke egos that perhaps was part of the wind-down deal.
or maybe not. like with a lot of stuff with kaz, we will probably never know.
I suspect the government made it clear without directly saying so that they wanted PC to leave. What I don’t get is why it happened all of a sudden. They could easily have phased it out slowly by not bringing in new recruits and in the space of 2 years, all current PCVs would be gone. Why did it have to suddenly happen?
Unless there was fear that the US would use PCVs to interfere in elections. Which would be ridiculous.